


Blue Lilies

by MadameReveuse



Category: Night at the Museum (2006 2009)
Genre: M/M, flower shop/tattoo artist au, fluff mainly, tablet guardians
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-17 17:47:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3538484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameReveuse/pseuds/MadameReveuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nicky wants to get a tattoo. Larry isn't really in favor of the idea, but takes him to a tattoo artist nonetheless. He hadn't expected said tattoo artist to constantly come by his flower shop and make sketches of the flowers. Then again, he hadn't expected him to be drop-dead gorgeous either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on another of these tumblr posts. I've tried to capture Larry's awkward "Yeah no umm"-way of speaking from the movies, I hope I succeeded without it being too grating.  
> The style is mediocre; maybe I will rewrite in the future. At least one further chapter to come.

It all pretty much started when Nicky wanted a tattoo.

Larry’s first notion had been to be against it, Parent Reasoning at the tip of his tongue: tattoos were something permanent, getting them hurt a whole lot, they looked unprofessional in the workplace, Nicky would probably regret it when he was older. But, well, that was Old People Talk, and he felt half ashamed bringing it up at all. Larry liked to believe he was a cool dad. And anyway, Nicky was eighteen, old enough to decide such things on his own, he had the money and…even though Larry tried very hard, he knew that when Nicky really wanted something, it was hard to say no to him. The other day he had noticed a tattoo parlor just down the street, and as far as he could tell, the drawings showcased in the window looked pretty neat, so now he was taking Nicky there. Truth be told, he secretly almost hoped some tattoo artist there would subtly discourage Nicky from the whole thing, maybe bring up what could go wrong in the whole process of inking and how tedious and painful things could get, or maybe right out say that Nicky was a bit young. Here’s hoping.

But Larry’s hopes began to dwindle as soon as he pushed the door open. The guy behind the counter looked hardly four years older than Nicky, and he greeted them with the sunny smile of someone who expects to get a lot of money – _Larry’s_ money – off of doing something he loved, and what he loved was obviously doodling on people’s bodies. He had two full sleeves of hieroglyphics, lotus flowers, scarab beetles, pictures of Ancient Egyptian gods, all done in vibrant colors against his tan skin. “Hi” he said. “I’m Ahkmenrah – I know that’s a bit of a mouthful, call me Ahk – how can I help you?”

Larry looked into Ahkmenrah’s eyes – they looked like they couldn’t decide whether to be green or blue – and found he had clean forgotten what he wanted to say. He tried to get himself together.

“Hey, um…hi” he stammered. Nicky gave him a strange look. Right, Nicky. The tattoo. That’s why they were here. “I’m Larry Daley” he introduced himself. “And this is my son Nick. And...he wants to get a tattoo. Although I think…”

“Dad, please” Nicky cut him short and huffed. “We’ve been over this. I’ll be fine, I’m not too young or _anything_.”

Ahk smiled at them again. “I understand if you’re hesitant, Mr. Daley” he said. “But if Nick tends to his tattoo well, I’m sure he’ll be totally fine.” Larry looked into the young man’s handsome smiley face and knew there was no discouraging going to happen.

Ahkmenrah turned to Nicky. “Alright, is there any specific design you got in mind? If you want to see more samples of my work, I’ve got a lot more stuff in the back…” He swept Nicky along into the back room, Nicky looking a little befuddled, as if he hadn’t honestly expected to even get this far. A minute later, the two of them were pouring over sketchbooks full of drawings. While Nick still sifted through designs, Ahkmenrah came over to Larry.

“Mr. Daley, if you – “ he began.

“Larry. Larry is fine.”

“Okay, Larry. Thing is, Nick’s still gonna need a parental admission slip. We can fill that out together, no problem. I’ve told him all he needs to know about the whole aftercare thing, and I feel like it’s best to tell you too, should he need help with anything. We’re going to do the actual inking in several weekly sessions, I hope that’s not too inconvenient for you…?”

“Not at all” Larry said. “I’ve got my apartment just around the block. It’s over the…I run the, um, the flower shop down the street. I mean, I’ll have to discuss things with his mother – we’re divorced – but…yeah, we’ll be alright.”

Only when they were already heading home, Larry remembered actually being dead against the whole tattoo idea. But strangely…he wasn’t so much anymore.

* * *

 

Nicky asked for Larry to be there when he got the tattoo done, because no matter how many times he assured everyone he was “Totally fine, dad, I’m old enough, I can handle it, jeez” he was still a little scared of the needle. Larry understood that, so he accompanied Nicky. He had no ulterior motives of his own, this had nothing to do with getting to see the nice young artist again, nope, nope, absolutely not.

Ahk handled matters very well, Larry thought approvingly as he listened to the young man constantly talking to Nicky in his low, melodic voice over the buzz of the needle. Somehow, it helped a lot, and even though Nicky had held his father’s hand in a vice grip like a frightened five-year-old at first, his fear dissipated about two minutes into it.

Afterwards, Ahk smiled his sunshiny smile and said to Nick: “Alright, that didn’t hurt all that much, did it? So, like I told you, don’t expose it directly to sunlight for a while, cover it up when you shower, and moisturize if need be. I’ll see you next week for the coloring.”

Larry was heading for the door already when Ahk called after him: “Um, Mr. Daley – I mean, Larry?”

Larry turned around. “Yes?”

“Listen, can I ask you for a small favor? You said you were running a flower shop, right?”

“Well, yeah, that’s right. Why, looking for a bouquet for the girlfriend?” As soon as it had left his mouth, Larry mentally cursed himself. _Why the hell had he just said that?!_

“No” Ahk said, simply. “The thing is…one of my other clients requested a floral design and I’m not exactly an expert on flowers. So…could I just…come over someday and do some sketches? I know it’s weird, but…I just want to be accurate.” He smiled a bashful little smile. “You can have a discount on the tattoo, too.”

“Oh no, none of that!” Larry said hurriedly. “Sure you can come over. Any time. No problem at all. And…and it’s not weird, I mean, you’re just doing your job. I don’t…I mean…yeah, just come over whenever, I’m glad to be of help.”

Later when Nick had gone over to his mother's and Larry was alone with his thoughts, he realized how much he hoped Ahk really would come over some time, that their relationship - if you could even call it that - would not be limited to two additional inking sessions and then goodbye forever. At the same time, the thought of Ahkmenrah visiting his flower shop made his stomach flutter with apprehension - he didn't even know why.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hell Yeah for updates!! Even though I've had that weird little breakdown the other day, I still managed to do this. I hope you enjoy, and thanks to everyone who left kudos!! :D

Larry Daley wasn’t even that enthusiastic about flowers, to be perfectly honest. The shop had belonged to his father, who had been besotted with the things, and after Larry’s career hit a few dead ends, he had inherited it just to have _something_ that paid his bills. He didn’t even grow many of the flowers he sold himself, he had them delivered from one of those big greenhouses somewhere off in the country, he tended to them, watered them and sold them off, a practice that his dad would probably have disapproved of. But now Larry sat down in his spare time and learned the botanic history behind the flowers on his display, their origin, their symbolic means, their scientific names and the legends that were connected with some of them. For the first time he realized how interesting flowers really were, and for the first time he felt like he could genuinely love his job. This rekindled interest in flowers had a reason to it. 

The reason was Ahkmenrah who, a week after their first meeting, had surprisingly turned up at the flower shop and asked if Larry had some orchids he could take some pictures of. “A client of mine wants one tattooed, and, well, I really want to be accurate, so…”

He started coming by several times a week, and soon a young man covered in tattoos sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of a bouquet of roses and scribbling into his sketchbook was a regular sight for patrons of Larry’s shop. Sometimes Ahk took one or two flowers home so he could study them more thoroughly, and Larry always charged him slightly less than other people because for some strange reason he wanted to see Ahk happy. He kept coming over with questions (“Some lady wants a peony and the name of her boyfriend. I have no idea what a peony is” “You sell carnations here? What the heck are carnations, that sounds gruesome, should I be worried?”) and sometimes he just appeared without any special inquiry and had Larry show him around the flowers he had not yet drawn (“I want to have as many floral designs as possible. I’m so glad I found a florist to help me out”). Sometimes he would ask polite questions related to Larry’s job (“How do you groom those? Where are they from?” “Is _hydrangea_ even a word?”), which gave Larry pointers to flaunt his newly acquired knowledge. He loved it when they just stood huddled over a flower pot together while the rain pattered against the windows and he could see the younger man’s eyes widen at some obscure story like “In medieval times, people believed the petals of these plants could cause demonic possession. The Catholic church declared it satanic and they almost had it extinguished. There was a rumor that witches used these plants for making weird potions that made them fly or communicate with spirits, or…”

So when the bell over the door gave its trademark jingle and Ahk stepped inside and said hello, Larry felt a happy warmth flooding his stomach – although he wished he wasn’t wearing his old green apron with daisies on that he used while unearthing the flowers (you could get dirt all over your clothes if you weren’t careful).

Ahk raised his brows at the apron, but he was polite enough not to say anything as Larry took it off and threw it away behind the counter. “Hey, Ahk” he greeted as if the apron had never happened. “You here for anything special?”

“If I could just take a closer look at the daffodils today, that would be great” Ahk said. “Some nerd wants three of them on his arm, with a Wordsworth quote.”

“Wordsworth?”

“Some poet. _I wandered lonely as a cloud_ and so on. I googled it last night.”

Larry left him staring with rapt attention at a pot of daffodils and went to water some plants. But he couldn’t help stealing glances at Ahkmenrah as he worked. Ahk had opened one of his sketchbooks, pencil hovering over the pages. In about five seconds he would have decided from which angle to begin drawing, and for the next thirty minutes all that would be heard of him was the soft scratching of pencil on paper. He was wearing a sleeveless black shirt that showed off his colorful tattoos that Larry was slowly coming to see as works of art. He also had a little lip piercing that Larry either hadn’t noticed in the previous weeks, or Ahk hadn’t worn it then. Sometimes he absentmindedly bit down on it while he worked. Larry had to tear his eyes away in order to not be caught staring.

He had to have roused Ahk’s attention somehow, though, as he looked up and asked: “Is there a problem?”

“Um, no” Larry stammered, pretty sure a blush was creeping up his face. “No, it’s alright …everything’s fine. You just go on.”

“It’s just, you’ve been looking at me” Ahk observed.

Larry let out a nervous laugh. “I was…not looking at you. I just…I just wondered. About, um, the daffodils.”

“The daffodils” Ahkmenrah repeated, an expression on his face as if he was fearing for Larry’s sanity. But Larry had thought of something now.

“Yeah, well, it’s kind of hard to believe you’ve never seen daffodils before. They pretty much grow in every front yard in the springtime.”

“Not in Egypt” Ahk replied and went back to sketching a petal, ready to become wrapped up in his work again. But now Larry was curious. Of course he had pretty much suspected that with _that_ name, and all the Ancient Egypt-themed art on his body, Ahkmenrah was of Egyptian descent. But with his flawless English and all, Larry would have thought he’d been living in New York forever.

“When did you get here?”

Ahkmenrah made a vague gesture with his free hand and muttered something like “Some years ago”.

“Did you have a tattoo place in Egypt too?”

Ahk sighed and looked up, coming out of the zone only reluctantly. “No, I hadn’t. I was living with my parents.”

“Why did you leave?”

“I dunno, I just needed somewhere else. My parents are really…conservative people. I mean I guess they love me. To pieces. My dad was just…not exactly supportive of some of the things I’m all about. And then there was this whole mess with my older brother…things were…tense.”

“Your older brother?”

“Kahmunrah…he got into some trouble. We don’t mention him often.”

Larry chuckled. “Your brother’s name is Kahmunrah? And you’re Ahkmenrah, I mean, seriously?”

Ahk grinned. “Yes, seriously. My parents are Kemetics. They’re crazy about that old-timey stuff.”

“Oh? And you aren’t, with your arms full of hieroglyphics and ancient gods and all?”

“Well, it’s kind of hard to shake, even if I wanted to. Which I don’t.”

“Someday you’ll have to tell me what all the tattoos mean.”

“Sure can do.” Ahk had finished his drawing. He stood up and pocketed his sketchbook. “I have to get going. Tell Nicky I said hi, and I’ll see him next week to finish his tattoo. Oh, and definitely tell me when you get any new deliveries in! Especially if it’s something I haven’t drawn yet.”

“I’ll get the next delivery in a week” Larry said. “Should I come over to your shop and tell you when it’s here?”

“Sounds needlessly complicated, why don’t you just call me?”

“I would, but I don’t exactly have your number…”

Ahk’s eyes grew almost comically wide. “I didn’t give you my number? And you didn’t say anything? This is an outrage!”

He tore a page from his sketchbook and scrawled some digits on it. When he was finished doing that, he folded the piece of paper and all but shoved it into Larry’s hand. Larry was too surprised at the sudden skin contact to say anything. He realized that this was the first time ever that he and Ahk were touching. It shouldn’t have been such a big deal to him, but it somehow was. And even when Ahk had long left, Larry found himself absentmindedly clenching and unclenching the hand that he, for a fraction of a second, had held. He sat down at his computer and logged into the website of the major delivery service that he ordered most of his flowers from. When the new delivery arrived next week, he would have something special for Ahk.


	3. Chapter 3

Larry felt only _a little_ awkward when he entered the tattoo parlor with a bouquet of flowers in his hands.

He had no idea what he was going to say to Ahkmenrah, or why he was even here instead of just calling, as they had agreed, or why he felt like giving him flowers was a good idea. Except that it would be…kind of nice, and if he was any judge of things, they would probably make Ahk smile, which was…which was good. He had that kind of smile you wanted to see again and again.

The door to the shop was open, but Ahk was nowhere to be seen. Larry waited five minutes, then ventured into the back rooms. Maybe Ahk was somewhere around there and busy with a client. The walls of these rooms were plastered with Ahk’s designs, and there were even more of them in impressive-looking leather-bound sketchbooks for the customers. What was also impressive was the assortment of paints and needles, but Larry had seen all this before when he’d been here with Nicky. Ahkmenrah wasn’t around here either.

Larry glanced at his watch. This wasn’t the time Ahk usually left for lunch break…wait, hadn’t he once told Larry that he had his apartment right above the shop? Maybe he could find a staircase or something…

After opening a few more doors, Larry found the stairs and climbed up them, which eventually led him to a door with Ahk’s name on the doorbell. Hoping Ahk was at home, he rang.

The door swung open and Ahk came into view, little splotches of paint on his fingers, big splotches of paint on the threadbare gray t-shirt he was wearing, and even a smear of it in his hair. From the way he tugged at the hem of his shirt, Larry could see that he was more than a little self-conscious about his appearance. Larry, on the contrary, had never seen a more adorable thing since the first time he had held newborn Nicky in his arms.

“Hi there” Larry said. “I didn’t know you paint. I thought you just did tattoos and…stuff.”

“It’s just a change of medium” Ahk replied. “I mean, I can make tattoos that look like watercolors or acrylics. So why not work with the actual thing? Just in my spare time, of course. _Painting is a nice way to put a happy buck_ _in your pocket and make good things happen in your heart._ ” He grinned. So did Larry.

“Bob Ross quote” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Can I come in?”

Ahk let him in. Larry’s first impressions of the apartment were that it was small, but neat, and it smelled of paint. He suddenly noticed that they were both standing in the tiny kitchen, unmoving and smiling at each other. Silence filled the sunlit little room, but not the awkward kind.

“I’d love to see some of your paintings” Larry said, breaking it. “That is, if you’re…okay with showing me them.”

“Oh, sure, no problem!” Ahk replied, his face lighting up. “Come on, they’re in the back room.”

Out of the blue, he grabbed Larry’s free hand and started pulling him along. His hand was warm and the suddenness of it all made Larry’s heart skip several beats. Halfway through the kitchen, however, Ahk stopped in his tracks and turned around. Larry tried to make his face look like he was perfectly calm and okay with the situation, in hopes that Ahkmenrah wouldn’t think him bothered or uncomfortable or anything else that would prompt him to let go of Larry’s hand. But Ahk merely said: “Oh, but you want to put these flowers down first. Let’s see, maybe I can find a vase somewhere…”

Looking through the kitchen-slash-living-room (this really was a tiny apartment), Larry noticed that finding an unoccupied vase would not be that easy. The flowers Ahk had taken from his shop were everywhere really, the fragrances mingling with the paint smell. On the tables, on the floor, on the kitchen counter…everywhere. The very first flower Larry remembered him buying, a single pink carnation, stuck, wilting, on the bloody lamp. And yet he hadn’t even thought to guess who Larry’s bouquet might be for.

“They’re…for you actually” he said, overtaken by a sudden shyness as he proffered the flowers. He watched as Ahk took them without a word and gingerly unwrapped them, his eyes widening as vibrant blue was revealed.

“They’re African Blue Lilies. They grow on the…”

“…banks of the Nile. I know them.” Still not letting go of Larry’s hand, Ahk went on to say: “Larry, you probably think you know what a nice gift you just gave me. But you don’t. These flowers, they…my parents’ mansion, where I grew up, was close to the Nile. It was a five-minute walk to reach the river. These flowers grew everywhere. This is…this is home from home for me, and for that I’m thankful.” Larry was touched, if a bit surprised by the solemn, almost politician-like little speech that had just come out of Ahkmenrah’s mouth. And all of that for a bunch of flowers. Also they were somehow still holding hands. He cleared his throat.

“Are you…going to make a drawing of them? You know, for…designs.”

“That’s a marvelous idea, Larry. Oh right, wait. Drawings. You wanted to see mine.” He shifted the bouquet so that it was resting against the crook of his arm and led Larry into the back room. Larry grew a little flustered for some reason as he realized that not only did Ahk store his paintings here, but it was his bedroom also. Apparently he slept on a simple mattress on the floor, covered with several blankets in incredibly mismatched colors and prints, his favorite probably being the one with the funny cats, if Larry was any judge of Ahk’s character. Apart from that and the wardrobe in the corner, the entire room was art. Around the mattress was a litter of sketchbooks, plus some dog-eared paperbacks. There were the paintings (some finished, some not) everywhere, accompanied by an assortment of brushes, pencils and, of course, the omnipresent paint. Larry wasn’t an expert on painting, but Ahk explained to him that he mostly worked with acrylics, spray paint and the occasional watercolor. The paintings he did that were unassociated with his tattoo artist job were mostly landscapes and still-lives, some portraits too but not many, and, well, flowers. A single long-stemmed, white-and-purple orchid in a glass sat on the floor, its twin banned to a canvas.

“That’s amazing. You’re amazing” Larry said. “I mean _your art_ is…amazing. You’re very talented.”

“Don’t I know it” Ahk said, smirking. Cute.

Not all the pictures in the room were art, though, Larry noticed. There was a photograph pinned to the wall of Ahk and two other people: an attractive, olive-skinned middle-aged woman and her stern-looking husband. Ahk looked a little younger, missing the piercing and quite a few of his tattoos.

“My parents” Ahk explained, having caught Larry looking.

“Oh. And _that guy?_ ” The other photograph right next to it depicted Ahk again, an empty shot glass in his hand and the locked grin of the utterly wasted on his face, and next to him a slightly older looking guy in – yes, Larry _was_ seeing that correctly – braids and a hideous green-golden dress. He also held a sign in his hands that said “ _This is actually a tunic”_ …and his expression was probably the most disgruntled thing Larry had ever seen.

Ahk chuckled. “My brother, Kah…when we still got along.”

“And did…your brother often wear dresses?”

“Tunics. No. He lost a bet and…thus, this picture was born. He had to wear stilettos, too.”

Larry turned away from the pictures to face Ahk again, noticing that he was still clutching the lilies. “Hey, you should probably really put those in a vase.”

“No. I’m not done holding them” Ahk objected and buried his face in them. A second later he came up and sneezed. He had the most adorable kitten sneeze. There was a spot of yellow pollen on the very tip of his nose. Larry found himself grinning like an idiot at how unbelievably cute he looked.

“Umm, you’ve got a little something…” he said.

“Where?”

“It’s right the…here, let me just.”

His fingers had been itching to do it anyway, so Larry leaned over and booped his nose, wiping the pollen off in the process. Upon being thusly touched, Ahk crinkled his nose and made a tiny little squeaking noise. Larry felt the sudden urge to gather him up in his arms and pepper his face with kisses, telling him how cute he was about a thousand times over. … _Wait, what?!_

They were still so unbelievably close…and then, as if he had read his thoughts, Ahk leaned forward and planted a kiss on Larry’s mouth.

Larry was caught by surprise not only at the kiss, but also at the pleasant chills it caused running down his spine. Ahk’s lips were so very soft on his. His body didn’t come up to consult his brain as he leaned into the kiss and deepened it, hands coming to rest on the young man’s hips. _Oh fuck, this feels so good, fuuuuck why does that feel so good…_

He wanted to trail his hands all over Ahk’s body, wanted to strip him off his clothes, throw him on the mattress and… _oh god, what?!_

Larry was shocked by all those feelings running through him, all those sudden desires. This was a bit much at once. He forced himself to break the kiss and step away from Ahk.

“Woah there, wait a minute” he said, wiping a hand over his mouth. “We’re gonna need to…talk this over.”

Ahk blinked at him, looking confused, maybe even a bit embarrassed. As if he already regretted even making that move. Or was it something else entirely? Larry didn’t know. Larry was close to panicking.

“Look, we…I…just…”

“Larry…”

“No, listen, I just…I don’t know what just happened but…I think I…I need some time to think this over. I guess I’ll…see you.”

Before Ahk had a chance to reply, Larry bolted. He was already out of the building when it occurred to him what an idiot he had just made of himself by running away like that.Whatever was Ahk thinking of him now?

Larry leaned against the wall and tried to get some order into these thoughts. Throughout the last few weeks, he had pointedly avoided thinking about what it was exactly that he felt for Ahk. He just knew that…he wanted to make him happy. He wanted to be close to him. When Ahk smiled, it was like a second sun appearing in the bloody sky. That was why he had visited him with the flowers in the first place and now…after that kiss, after having Ahk’s body so close to him he could _smell him_ …just the thought of it made Larry’s heart jump and a needy ache appear in his stomach and moving deeper. He muffled a groan behind his hand, pretty aware that only half of the sound stemmed from frustration. The other half was the thoughts of what he suddenly longed to do to Ahk until the man was a moaning hot mess underneath him and…

_Nope, not the right moment_ , Larry thought and slapped a lock on those thoughts. He half wanted to go back inside, knock on Ahk’s door and apologize for running out on him like a total idiot. But he didn’t. He really did need space, a few hours to sort the mess of his feelings out. He could still call Ahk and apologize tomorrow, when everyone was a bit more level-headed. Yeah, that was a plan.

Larry went home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be a bit more angsty because Larry is an idiot. I'm sorry I haven't updated earlier, and I'll try to get the new chapter done as fast as possible, but right now Snafu Shelton has taken me hostage and is holding a knife to my throat demanding I write about HIM AND ONLY HIM. Let's see when I can escape this precarious situation.


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